Keith Olbermann routinely declares Bill O’Reilly to be The Worst Person in the World, but I thought yesterday’s edition was especially amusing:

And our winner? Oh, it’s a two-for, Bill-O offering you this splendid deal, buy a copy of his book, “I’m Squinting While Wearing a Wind Breaker” — no, I’m sorry, it’s called “Culture Wart”–I will get it somewhere. You buy a copy of the book from him, and he will send a free copy to a U.S. soldier somewhere. So you’ve got copies to give away to the soldiers, but you only do that if I give you at least 26 bucks first? That’s generosity. You know Bill, I can buy two copies from Amazon for 25 bucks. And I can send the second copy to a soldier, along with a dollar. Bill, you’re taking a dollar out of the hands of everyone of our troops. Why do you hate the troops, Bill? Bill O’Reilly, today’s Worst Person in the World.

Comments

Amazon lists the O’Reilly book as being $15.60 for a new copy (free shipping for orders over $25). That is $31.20 for two copies. O’Reilly’s website lists the price as being $26.00 and says they will send a copy to a soldier for each copy purchased by a buyer. That comes out to two copies, $13.00 each. I’m uncertain about the shipping costs of purchasing directly.

Olbermann should have bothered actually checking the price before sputtering off. (Maybe you should have checked before taking it on Olbermann’s word, also.) I’m not a fan of self-promoter O’Reilly, but then I’m no fan of Edward R. Murrow poseur Olbermann either.

Anybody know if MREs have anything similar to the little rolls C-rats used to have which invariably ended up tucked into the camouflage cover band on your steel pot, along with the little boxes of cigarettes? If so I’d hope the paper there is of a higher quality than the blowhard’s book is liable to be given that sanitation is probably the highest and best use any troop in the field could put the book to.

I’m sure that many if not most of the troops will enjoy reading Culture War; they certainly will not consider it to be toilet paper.

Keith Olbermann is a first-class jerk, Jason. You are not showing yourself in a good light by agreeing with him when he makes a stupid criticism like this. Bill O’Reilly is under no obligation to donate his books to servicemen.

Not getting it, are we? The funny thing about that paragraph is the jab at the way that some people twist every statement they disagree with into “Why do you hate America?”, and the obviously fallacious ways in which they do it.

Of course, getting the prices right would have really clinched it, but not doing so hardly invalidates the subtle criticism proffered.

Bill O’Reilly is under no obligation to donate his books to servicemen.

Indeed he isn’t, which is all the more reason for him to refrain from doing so, or writing any other tomes devoted exclusively to his solopsistic conspiracy paranoia. The point is that O’Reilly is a self-promoting asshole whose trying to pass off his self-promotion as some kind of charitable giving. He would be better off just driving around with the 50 cent car-magnets like all the other armchair warmongers.